Display the classic menus in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer temporarilyIf you are used to the older style Windows Explorer, which has the Classic menus (File, Edit, etc), but you don’t want to have them on all the time, just press the Alt key. This will display the classic menus temporarily. Also, if you have the Classic Menus turned off in Internet Explorer 7, this trick will also show the menus in IE.

Restore Access to Virtual Folders on the Start MenuIn previous Windows Vista builds, the Start menu items for Documents, Pictures, and Music all pointed to Virtual Folder / Library listings. In the December CTP, this functionality has been changed back to the Windows XP style; by linking to the actual folder. If you wish to regain access to these virtual folders, you need to change a few settings:

1. Right click on the Start button, and click “Properties”.2. In the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” dialog, click “Customize”.3. Change the selection for Documents to “Link to this library”. Repeat this for Pictures and Music if you wish.4. Press OK and dismiss the dialogs.

Enable “Run” on the Start MenuThe one thing that has been in the same place since Windows 95 has been the “Run” command. In the December CTP, this has been hidden by default. To enable it, simply perform the following commands:

1. Right click on the Start button, and click “Properties”.2. In the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” dialog, click “Customize”.3. Scroll down and in the list you shall find “Run command”. Check the box next to it.4. Dismiss all dialogs by pressing OK.

Enable “Express” lookIf for any reason you are not a fan of the new Aero look (also known as Glass), or you have a low-end video card, you can change this behavior without needing to use Windows XP drivers or toggling DWM (Ctrl+Shift+F9). Aero Express is the lighter, less graphics intensive look.

Disable the transparent taskbar without disabling Aero GlassIf you wish to have your taskbar a solid color instead of semi-transparent, but you don’t want to disable the Aero look, simply turn on the Windows Media Player taskbar control. You don’t even need to actually use Windows Media Player for this to work. To try this out:

1. Right click on an empty space or on the clock in the taskbar, and under the “Toolbars” list, click “Windows Media Player”.

Disable User Account Protection (UAP)Once you have installed the December CTP and set up an every day user account, one of the first things you will notice is that you have almost no rights to do anything administrator related on your system. Disabling this is purely up to you but if you find UAP is getting in your way, or some applications refuse to run because of it, you may want to take a look at this. Here are the instructions:

NOTE: You should be logged in as Administrator to do this, or you could run the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) elevated.

1. Press WinKey (the flag key on your keyboard) + R and type “secpol.msc”. (Without the quotes). If asked to permit Microsoft Management Console to run, allow it.2. In the Local Security Settings window, in the left hand pane, navigate to “Security Settings, Local Policies, Security Options”.3. In the pane to the right, scroll all the way to the bottom.4. Set the first two User Account Protection items to “No Prompt”, and “Disabled” on the remaining three items.5. Close the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), and if you are asked to save the settings for “Console1”, press “No”.6. Reboot or log off and log back in to enforce the new settings; or alternatively open an elevated Command Prompt and type “gpupdate /force” (without the quotes), and then press Enter..

Internet Explorer 7 User Agent StringCopy and paste the following code into Notepad, and save it to your desktop as IE7UserAgent.REG.

Double-click the file to merge it into the Windows Registry, and then restart Internet Explorer for the change to take effect. If UAP is turned on, permit the operation to take place.

You can easily undo this change by copying and pasting the following code into Notepad, and then saving it as IE7Undo.reg and merge it into the Windows Registry. If UAP is turned on, permit the operation to take place.

You can test these changes using a simple page that checks the User Agent. We recommend: http://www.fiddlertool.com/useragent.aspx.

Increase PerformanceThe December CTP is quick right from installation, however there is one bug that causes a slow down with the user interface. This bug involves the sliding buttons on the taskbar; by disabling this, performance increases a bit. It’s really up to you, but the bug can be very annoying at times. To disable it, just carry out the following actions:

1. Press WinKey+R and type in “sysdm.cpl” (without the quotes).2. Click the Advanced tab, and then under “Performance” click “Settings”.3. In the Visual Effects tab, uncheck “Slide taskbar buttons”.

We have also compiled a registry file that changes a few key settings involving the timings for menus, hover events, etc, which makes the Windows interface more responsive. You can download that here. Included in the file is also a registry file for enhancing your internet connection speed. Both of these were tested and are fully working without any issues, and have also been scanned for viruses.

Disable Un-Needed ServicesThere are some services in this build that can be disabled without impacting any features (except the Security Center service, some people may find this annoying).

Disable the following:• IIS Admin Service - if you don’t plan on using IIS, you don’t need this enabled.• Offline Files – Disabling this helps to speed up Windows Explorer when performing network tasks.• Peer Name Resolution Protocol• PRNP Auto Registration• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) – if your computer isn’t going to be running as a mail server, you don’t need this.• Tablet PC Input Service – If you do not use a Tablet PC or you’re on a desktop computer, you don’t need this.

Workarounds for Known Issues in this buildMicrosoft has added several workarounds to the Release Notes for the December CTP. For your convenience, they will also be outlined here.

Windows Backup Failure ErrorWindows Backup will fail with error 0×80070026 when you attempt to back up.

To fix this issue:

1. Press WinKey + R on your keyboard, and then type “regedit.exe” (without the quotes). If UAP asks, permit the action.2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\POLICIES\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\SYSTEM. If this key does not exist, create it by right clicking on “WINDOWS”, and from the context menu, select “New” and then “Key”. Name this key “SYSTEM” (without the quotes).3. In the “SYSTEM” key, create a new DWORD (32-bit) value, and name it “CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo” (without the quotes).4. Double click on the DWORD and set its value to 1.

Installation Instructions for IIS7If you are interested in installing or testing out IIS 7 (Internet Information Services) on Windows Vista or Windows Server Code-name “Longhorn”, you must perform the following command:

1. Press WinKey+R on your keyboard, and then type “cmd.exe” (without the quotes).2. Copy and paste (or type it out, doesn’t matter) the following command:start /w pkgmgr.exe /iu:IIS-WebServerRole;IIS-WebServerFeature;IIS-FTPServerFeature3. Press Enter on your keyboard and IIS will install on its own.

User Accounts Control Panel – Can not modify account properties for other accounts but your ownIf your computer is not joined to a domain, administrators are unable to modify account properties for other users via the user accounts control panel.

In the December CTP build, when an administrator clicks another user’s tile in the “Manage Accounts” page in the User Accounts Control Panel, nothing happens and as a result they are unable to get to the page that allows them to change settings for another user’s account. You may workaround this issue by changing the account properties from within that account or from an administrative account, press WinKey+R and type “control userpasswords2″ (without the quotes), select the user you wish to modify and click “Properties”.

Opening ZIP files that contain folders hangs Windows ExplorerThe built in ZIP file handling in the December CTP does not seem to work well, if you open a ZIP file that contains folders, Windows Explorer may hang and the only way to close the unresponsive window is to end the Explorer.exe process with Task Manager.

A quick workaround to this issue is to use a program like WinZip or WinRAR for handling ZIP files.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 does not run correctly with UAP turned onIf you are trying to run Adobe Photoshop CS2 on the December CTP of Windows Vista (build 5270), you have User Account Protection enabled (which I personally recommend), and you are being prompted with the following error:

An error has been detected with a required application library and the product cannot continue. Please reinstall the application.

Here are the workaround methods:

1. Right click on the shortcut for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and click “Run Elevated…”; when asked, click Permit.2. Right click on the shortcut for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and click Properties. Click the Compatibility tab. Check “Run this program as an administrator”, and press OK.

With the second workaround, you will be asked to permit Photoshop to run when you lanch the shortcut (same as the first one, but one less step - no need to Run Elevated).

Bài của imnuts (12/8/2006)

Dual-boot Windows Vista and Linux

Dual-boot Windows Vista and Linux

With the public beta release of Windows Vista, there are likely many users that would want to install Windows Vista along side some sort of Linux distribution. The problem arises with two small features of Windows Vista that do not play well with Linux. The first of which, and the main issue, is the new bootloader that Windows Vista uses. The second, which only causes minor issues, is the new NTFS format that is used by Vista. The main installation procedure here is install Windows Vista, see the PROnetworks Installation Guide for details, and then install Linux. This guide will give users the instructions for doing so using the GRUB bootloader do to popularity. LILO, being a significantly less used bootloader, will not be looked at as distributions that have the option for LILO also can use GRUB.

Dual-Boot Windows Vista and LinuxAfter the installation of Windows Vista, you will want to install Linux. DO NOT resize the Vista partition during the installation of the Linux distribution! Due to the change in NTFS versions, no Linux partitioning program, nor standard Windows partitioning programs, can properly alter the partition that Vista is installed to. Also, be sure to specify that GRUB is the bootloader to be installed if this is an option. After installation is completed and you will boot into the Linux operating system that you installed (because GRUB over-wrote the Vista bootloader in the MBR). From here, open up a terminal window (the method of doing so will vary across distrobutions/window managers). After you are at the terminal, all commands that are going to be needed to modify the boot menu will need to be run as 'root' so you will need to know how to accomplish this on your system (su or sudo). The first thing that we will do is backup the current boot menu, which can easily be done by doing this (remember to run this as root):

Code:

cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.bak

Next, we need to edit the file "/boot/grub/menu.lst" in the text editor of your choice. You will now want to add an entry for Windows Vista. To do so, you need to add three lines to the file at the end of the file. Example entries follow:

Vista is installed to the first partition of the first IDE hard drive:

Code:

title "Windows Vista" root (hd0,0) chainloader +1

Vista is installed to the first partition of the first SATA/SCSI hard drive:

Code:

title "Windows Vista" root (sd0,0) chainloader +1

If your setup is not the same as either of the examples above, you will need to modify one to match your current setup. The only area that should need modification is the line that starts with "root". The item that will likely need modification is the drive and partition information. For editing the drive that Windows Vista is installed on, you will have to change the first '0' to the number of the drive. If it is the primary or first drive, it will be a '0', the secondary or second drive would be '1', and so on. The same numbering scheme is followed for the partition information, which is the second '0'. First partition on the device is '0', second partition is '1' and so on. If you do not know what drive/partition you should put into the list, you can find this out with a disk or partition management program that may be installed with the system. If you know the device that Vista is installed on, you can also translate that to the GRUB menu. For instance, if Windows Vista is installed to "/dev/hda3" then the "root" entry would be "(hd0,2)" and if the device was "/dev/sdc5" the "root" entry would be "(sd2,4)". A general note here as well, if you have Windows Vista installed to a logical partition within an extended partition, the extended partition counts as a partition. Because of this, what would be thought of as the "second" partition, if it is logical, would actually be the third, as the whole extended partition counts as '1'. If you do not know what the entry should look like, please ask as the only stupid question is the one not asked. It will likely save time and frustration on your part. After you have the file modified, save it and now restart the system to test it out.

Multi-Boot Windows XP, Windows Vista, and LinuxThe "triple-boot" scenario is actually not difficult, although one might suspect otherwise. The installation sequence is specific though for an easy setup. The installation procedure will be, first, install Windows XP as you normally would. After setup has finished and you are done setting things up the way you want them to be, you will want to install Windows Vista. This will alter the bootloader, and will have the Vista bootloader with an entry for Vista and Legacy OSes (XP and earlier). Once you are done with installing and configuring Windows Vista, you need to install the Linux distribution of your choice. During testing, Ubuntu 6.06 was used, and the GRUB boot menu was properly edited during installation to include an entry for Windows. Although the entry was labelled "Windows XP Professional", when this entry was selected during boot, it would bring up the Windows Vista bootloader and you could then boot either Windows Vista or a legacy operating system. There is a chance however that the installation of Linux will not automatically add an entry for Windows Vista/XP. In such a situation, one should follow the first section about adding an entry for Windows to the GRUB boot menu.

Installation of Linux before Windows VistaWhile this situation is not the ideal situation, it is not hard to fix. This should just involve re-installing GRUB. This can be done by using the following directions. First, open up the terminal and run the following command as 'root':

Code:

grub

This will bring up the GRUB shell, which will allow you to re-install GRUB. From here, you will need to specify the drive and partition that GRUB is going to be installed (or reinstalled) to. We can do that by using the following command:

Code:

root (hd0,1)

There may be a few changes that need made here depending upon the current setup. First, you need to make sure the drive type is correct. If GRUB is going to be installed to an IDE hard drive, then 'hd', as shown in the example, is going to be used. Otherwise, it will be 'sd', for a SATA or SCSI hard drive. The next item, the '0', is the drive number. Zero (0) specifies that it is the first hard drive in the sequence. If it is the second hard drive, this would be changed to '1' (one) and so on. Keep in mind that numbering starts at '0' so you would take the drive number and decrease it by one for the number used here. The last number, '1' in the example, is the partition where GRUB is to be installed. This partition should be the one that contains the '/boot' directory, and again, numbering of partitions starts at '0', so the above example is installing to the 2nd partition on the physical disk. The last step would be to install GRUB to the MBR, which can be done with the last command:

Code:

setup (hd0)

Which could also require editing, depending on the setup. The drive type would need changed as described above along with the disk number. Since we are installing to the MBR, you will want to specify the drive that currently contains the boot information that is used by Windows Vista.

From here, we are now done installing GRUB to the MBR and we can exit the GRUB shell by typing:

Code:

quit

After exiting the shell, we can restart the computer and test out to see if the reinstallation of GRUB was successful. If you do not have any entries for Windows, you will need to follow the instructions above in the section on dual-booting as this describes the process of adding Windows Vista/XP to the GRUB boot menu.

HOW-TO: Switch to Windows Vista 64-bit painlessly

Posted on March 18th, 2007 at 11:18 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST).

If
your computer is fairly new (within the last year or so), there is a
good chance that you may have a 64-bit processor. For instance, the AMD
Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors are 64-bit, as well as Intel’s
older Pentium 4 with EM64T and Pentium D processors, and of course we
can’t forget the Core 2 line-up.

You might be wondering, “What are the advantages of using 64-bit Windows?”

Access to more than 3.25 GB of RAM – if your computer has 4 GB of
memory, you will be able to use all of it instead of being limited by
the 32-bit memory addressing system.

Performance – running a 64-bit operating system on a 64-bit
processor offers better performance than a 32-bit operating system
could provide.

Backwards compatibility – most 32-bit applications work without an
issue on 64-bit Windows, with the exception of Anti-Virus programs and
some other system utilities that rely on drivers.

In this guide I will be outlining the basic steps you will need to
take to get a fully functional Windows Vista 64-bit installation up and
running that serves your needs.

DISCLAIMER: I (Kristan Kenney) cannot be held
responsible if something doesn’t work. I have tested these instructions
and any included applications to the best of my ability and have noted
their behaviour under Windows Vista Ultimate, 64-bit.

Step One – Make sure you have the latest BIOS
This is a very important step. Several computer manufacturers have
released Flash BIOS updates for their computer systems that allow
correct operation with Windows Vista. Please visit your computer
manufacturers’ website to check for a BIOS update that pertains to your
computer model. If your computer is custom built, visit your
motherboard manufacturer’s website and check for a BIOS update.

Once you have obtained the latest Flash BIOS update for your
computer follow the update instructions from your computer/motherboard
manufacturer. These instructions will vary, usually it is a simple
flash using a Windows based tool, or you may need to boot from a USB
Memory Stick or Floppy Disk.

Step Two – Download your drivers

Before we go ahead and format the computer to install Windows Vista
64-bit, we will want to ensure that we have all of the device drivers
handy after installation in order to make our hardware work. Windows
Vista has great out-of-the-box driver support, but there are a few
things that you will want to make sure you have before taking the
plunge – all drivers must be 64-bit, you cannot use 32-bit drivers in a
64-bit environment.

Chipset drivers

Graphics card drivers (don’t necessarily need to be WHQL’d / signed
as they are “user-mode” in Windows Vista, meaning that they do not
interfere with the kernel – however it is always a good idea to use
signed drivers for stability).

Serial ATA (SATA) / RAID drivers

Sound card drivers

Printer drivers

Again, check with your computer manufacturer / hardware manufacturer(s) for these drivers – and make sure that they are for Windows Vista 64-bit. I cannot stress enough that you must use 64-bit drivers under Windows Vista 64-bit, and they must also be signed.

Once you have downloaded your drivers, you will want to burn them to
a CD or DVD, or alternatively save them to a USB Memory Stick (commonly
known as a “flash” drive). This way you will have them available when
you install Windows.

Step Three – Installing Windows Vista

To install Windows Vista 64-bit, you must perform a clean
installation. You will need to back up your data before performing a
clean installation as your hard drive will be formatted, meaning that
any data on the hard drive will be erased, stricken from the drive like
hair from a Siamese cat.

When performing a clean installation, it is always a good idea to
boot directly from the Windows Vista installation DVD. To do this, make
sure you have your boot order set to look at the CD/DVD drives before
the hard drives, or on some computer systems you can press a hot key
during boot up to select a boot device (Dell implements this – the F12
key). Place the Windows Vista DVD in your DVD-ROM drive and restart the
computer. You will then be asked “Press any key to boot from CD or
DVD…” – press Enter, or any other key here.

Windows Vista setup will load and you will go through some
configuration pages. Installation is pretty straight forward, and the
only configuration page you really need to be concerned with is the
disk configuration page. Here you will need to create a new partition
or format an existing partition for use with Windows Vista. Don’t
install over an existing installation of Windows, as it will turn out
very messy and will not provide the best results.

Setup usually takes about 25 minutes on average from start to
finish, but this will vary on your computer specifications – processor
speed, memory, hard disk access times, these are all factors in the
installation time.

Step Four – Install your drivers

After Windows Vista 64-bit is installed, you may need to install a
few drivers. You can check to see if there are any remaining hardware
devices that need drivers by verifying device status using the Windows
Device Manager.
To access the Windows Device Manager:

Click on the Start button.

Right click on “Computer”.

From the context menu that appears click on “Manage”.

When User Account Control prompts you for consent, click on “Continue”.

In the Computer Management window on the left hand side click on “Device Manager”.

If there are any devices listed under “Unknown Devices”, right click
on them individually and install the drivers. You may have to reboot
after installing certain drivers.

Step Five – Install Windows Updates

After you have installed your drivers you will want to update
Windows. This ensures that you have the latest reliability and security
updates installed. To run Windows Update:

Click on the Start button.

Click on “All Programs”.

Click on “Windows Update”.

In the task pane on the left hand side click on “Check for updates”.

If Windows finds any updates applicable to your system it will
display the number of updates and allow you to review them and install
them.

Step Six– Install Codecs

This may ultimately be one of the most important steps, as codecs
allow you to enjoy multimedia content (videos and audio) on your
computer.

32-bit applications cannot use 64-bit codecs, and vice-versa. This
means that we will need to install two sets of codecs in order to get
both 32-bit and 64-bit multimedia applications fully functional.

For decoding most video files I recommend the XviD codec, which supports the decoding of both DivX and XviD. These two file formats make up the majority of video files available from the internet. You may also wish to install Apple QuickTime at this time.

Now that we have covered 32-bit codecs we will want to install the
64-bit codecs. By installing 64-bit codecs, you will be able to
manipulate DivX, XviD and other multimedia files using Windows DVD
Maker and Windows Movie Maker. You will also be able to play videos
using the 64-bit version of Windows Media Player. The codec package we
will be installing is called “Vista Codec Pack x64 Components”, and at
the time of writing is at version 1.1.2. I have personally tested all
codecs mentioned in this step to ensure maximum compatibility, and have
found zero issues with it.

Run the installer. If User Account Control prompts you for consent, click on “Continue”.

Follow the instructions in the codec package installer.

Now, at this point you’re probably wondering – what is the point of
having both 32-bit and 64-bit codecs installed? The answer is simple –
it ensures that you will be able to play back your multimedia files
with ease, not having to worry about the application being 32-bit or
64-bit.

Step Seven – Install your applications / games and update them

Now that we have installed our drivers, Windows Updates, and codecs,
we will want to install any applications – such as Ahead Nero or
Microsoft Office. It is usually a good idea to install by date of
release, however if you don’t know the release dates of your
applications here is a general rule of thumb I like to follow, it has
served me well:

Microsoft applications (Office, Works, Encarta, etc.)

Adobe applications (Adobe Reader, Photoshop, etc.)

Other applications (productivity software, etc.)

Anti-virus software.

Games and game updates.

All application updates.

Step Eight: Defragment your hard drive

After installing applications, games, updates, drivers, codecs, and
other things the hard drive is probably going to be a bit fragmented.
This means that files are not in contiguous blocks on your hard drive,
but rather scattered into little pieces – think of it like a broken
cookie. Defragmenting basically puts all the files back together, so
that it takes less time to access them in the future.

To run the Windows Defragmentation program:

Click on the Start button.

Click on “Control Panel”.

Click on “System and Maintenance”.

Under “Administrative Tools” click on “Defragment your hard drive”.

If User Account Control prompts you for consent, click on “Continue”.

In the “Disk Defragmenter” window click on “Defragment now”.

You can close the window as Windows will continue defragmenting in
the background. This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a
few hours depending on the fragmentation.

OPTIONAL STEP: Enable 64-bit Windows Media Player by default

If for whatever reason you would like to use the 64-bit Windows Media Player by default:

Click on the Start button.

Click on “All Programs”, and then click on “Accessories”.

Right click on “Command Prompt” and click “Run as administrator”.

When User Account Control prompts you for consent, click on “Continue”.

In the Command Prompt window, type “%windir%\system32\unregmp2.exe /SwapTo:64″ (without the quotes) and then press Enter.

In the Command Prompt window, type “regedit” (without the quotes).

In the left hand side of the Registry Editor window, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App
Paths\wmplayer.exe

Create a back up of the settings in this key just in case you wish
to switch back to the 32-bit Windows Media Player for whatever reason.

Set the value for the (Default) key to “%ProgramFiles%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe” (include the quotes).

Set the value for the Path key to “%ProgramFiles%\Windows Media Player” (do not include the quotes).

This concludes the Windows Vista 64-bit installation and
configuration guide. Thank you for taking the time to read this
document, if you have any questions, concerns, or issues please feel
free to leave me a comment or contact me.

If you would like to print or download this document for later viewing I have saved it as an Adobe PDF file for your convenience.

[…]
Kenney has a pretty detailed guide up on his blog on how to move to the
64-bit version of Windows Vista as painlessly as possible. If you have
any questions on moving to x64 - this post is a pretty good […]

[…]
already been bookmarked in Vista Security Features.While at WindowsNow,
I located a working link to HOW-TO: Switch to Windows Vista 64-bit
painlessly by Kristan Kenney. I had read a leader to his tutorial at
another site, but the link didn’t work. I […]